I’ve never actually seen The Adventurers but everything that I’ve read about it (and the film is mentioned in just about every “Terrible Movie” book that I own) would seem to suggest that this 1970 film is pretty bad. In fact, just about every review that I’ve read has referred to the film as being lurid, trashy, melodramatic, and over-the-top.
However, that’s not really a problem for me. That’s what a lot of people say about the Valley of the Dollsand that’s one of my favorite movies, precisely because it is so lurid and ludicrous. (Lurid and ludicrous are two Ls that equal love, as far as I’m concerned.)
I was recently doing a YouTube search on The Adventurers and I came across the following video, which is described as being the “amazing fashion show from Lewis Gilbert’s The Adventurers.” Having watched the video, I can agree that this fashion show is pretty amazing. In fact, it pretty much epitomizes everything that I love about the over-the-top, big budget event films of the late 60s and early 70s. As I watched this scene, I especially enjoyed the random jump cut and the unnecessary use of the split screen. It’s just so 1970!
I may not have seen the entire film but this scene from The Adventurers is still a scene that I love.
Is it just me, or is this year’s summer blockbuster season incredibly front-loaded? Not only did it get off to a ridiculously early start in April with the release of Captain America : The Winter Soldier, but it seems that, with the notable exception of Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, which is slated for a July release, everything that I was interested in seeing came out prior to the Memorial Day weekend — which was, in years past, the time when Hollywood’s blockbuster onslaught usually began.
Oh well. I guess there’s still some stuff I have some sort of low-level semi-interest in hitting theaters, with Disney’s Maleficent being a prime example of what I’m talking about. I wasn’t “hyped” for it, per se, but on a rainy Saturday afternoon with nothing else going on, what the hell — it’ll do in a pinch. Anybody with a functioning neural cortex pretty much knows what they’re getting into with something like this — a purportedly “modern re-telling” of a classic fairy tale (in this case Sleeping Beauty) that’s also, perhaps paradoxically, billed as being “truer to the roots” of the story than the universally-known animated version. Maybe everything that’s old really is new again.
In any case, the pattern these kinds of thing inevitably follow was set fairly firmly by Snow White And The Huntsman a couple summers back, and with a live (well, okay, live plus lots of CGI) action version of Cinderella already in the pipeline, it looks like “modernized fairy tales” (that are, again, supposedly “closer” to the “source material”) is a full-blown trend in Tinseltown. At least until one flops spectacularly.
Maleficent is too precise, clinical, and by-the-numbers to be that first big flop, of course, as this is thoroughly audience-tested material from start to finish, and while that same uber-conservative approach definitely sucks any sort of life or individuality from the proceedings, it does ensure that Disney will almost certainly turn a healthy profit off this thing, even with a budget estimated in the neighborhood of $200 million. It is, for all intents and purposes, a can’t-miss investment, and that’s what it plays out as.
Which isn’t the same thing as me saying that Maleficent is actively bad — it’s just that it’s not particularly good, either. Oh, sure, Angelina Jolie is perfect in the title role (there’s already Oscar talk) and it really does feel like it’s a part she was born to play, and the CGI work is spectacular and breathtaking and jaw-dropping and all that, and yeah, Elle Fanning as Aurora ( that’s what we call her now, folks, not “Sleeping Beauty”) leads a very talented supporting case that also includes the likes of Imelda Staunton, Sharlto Copley, Juno Temple, and Brenton Thwaites, all of whom do good work, but it’s all in service to the most pedestrian, production-line cinematic engineering possible. First-time director Robert Stromberg, who hails from a CG effects background, most likely knows what he’s doing here, but he’s given so little room to maneuver that failure just simply isn’t an option. This is a film that literally could have been directed by nearly anyone with at least some sort of cinematic background and turned out okay.
And maybe that’s what bugged me about it the most : just that sort of hyper-aggressive okay-ness. Given the opportunity to completely re-set the table, the Disney execs who originated and then green-lit this idea were more than happy to just tinker around the edges and “update” things without actually changing them. We all know the story, and while we’re admittedly getting a heavily-padded version of it told from the perspective of the “bad guy,” the fact remains that at the end of the day, all we’re left with is a more expensive, glitzier take on what we’ve already seen.
Maybe I missed a bit by just seeing this in 2-D, but let’s face it : any flick that leans upon the crutches of 3-D,Imax, and all that crap to “get the most from it” is one that’s entirely reliant upon bells and whistles — and while those bells and whistles are, no two ways about it, most impressive in this case, there’s just no substitute for a genuinely involving script, and Maleficent doesn’t have one. Mind you, it doesn’t have a bad script, either, it just — has a script. And the job of that script is to provide some sort of plausible set-up for one admittedly magnificent effects sequence after another. It’s cool and all for about a half hour, but after two full hours of Stromberg and company having to top themselves every five to ten minutes, you just end up feeling sort of worn down by events rather than invested in them.
Still, I suspect that Maleficent is going to prove to be pretty well “review-proof” and enjoy a healthy run in theaters before going on to do equal, if not even greater, business on home video. This is a film that’s precisely engineered to do exactly what it’s supposed to and nothing less (or more). Kinda like a robot. And it’s that robotic, auto-pilot, cruise control sensation that prevents this movie from being at all memorable — for good or ill.
As our regular readers know, I love SyFy original movies.
Whenever people discover that fact about me, they always assume that I must have loved Sharknado. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Sharknado was film that tried to force snark as opposed to generating it naturally. One need only watch a good SyFy film — like End of the World— to see just how overrated Sharknado truly was.
But that’s the thing. Most of the people who rave about Sharknado have never actually seen any other SyFy films. To me, everything that I disliked about Sharknado was captured in the image of Mia Farrow and Phillip Roth live-tweeting along with the film. Everyone knows that Mia Farrow and Philip Roth had never watched SyFy before Sharknado and they’ve probably never watched it after. And, though they might not want to admit it, everyone knows that Mia’s Sharknado-tweets were pedestrian and predictable. But, because she’s kind of famous and Ronan Farrow is a thing, we were supposed to be impressed.
Meanwhile, those of us who actually put SyFy original movies on the twitter map, were expected to be thrilled that a celeb had decided to come hang out with the common folks.
If you’ve seen Sharknado but you haven’t seen End of the World or Battledogs, then you don’t know what you’re missing.
(Or what you missed since SyFy appears to be getting out of the original movie business…)
Well, somebody call Mia Farrow because Sharknado 2 is going to be premiering on July 30th. Judging from the trailer below, it appears that the entire cast will return for “the second one.” And make no doubt, I will be live-tweeting this film because somebody has to show these false SyFy fans how it’s done.
How much is Ghostbusters a part of the American culture? It’s such a part that the decoration pictured above was the most popular thing in the neighborhood last Halloween. All through the month of October, people young and old drove up and down the street just to see the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man.
Well, come August 29th, those same people will have a chance to see him again because, in honor of the film’s 30th anniversary, Ghostbusters is going to be re-released. And, speaking as someone who has only gotten to see Ghostbusters on television, I can’t wait to watch it on the big screen.
And, since I love trailer, what better way to commemorate the re-release of Ghostbusters than be sharing the trailer?
So, apparently, somebody out there was very smart and realized that, as far as titles go, Hercules: The Thracian Wars was incredibly unwieldy. As a result, the film’s title has been shortened to simply Hercules, which is what everyone was going to call it anyway.
(Except for maybe the people of Thrace…)
Having watched this trailer, I really can’t say that I am in any way excited about the prospect of watching Hercules. I like Dwayne Johnson and this would seem to be a perfect role for him but the trailer just feels so generic that it could just as easily been a trailer for The Legend of Hercules.
Or, to put it another way, if I hadn’t already known that this film was directed by Brett Ratner, I would have guessed on the basis of the trailer.
Personally, I’d like to see a movie about Pandora and the box.
Well, all good things must come to an end and that includes my cinematic trip back to college. Now, just in case you’re feeling that my trip back was a bit too overly critical and snarky, allow me to conclude things with a scene that I truly love. This is a scene that so epitomizes everything that’s great about college. The film takes places in the 60s and was filmed in the 70s but National Lampoon’s Animal House is a truly a timeless film.
At this point, during my cinematic journey back to college, I paused and considered the films that I had already watched. I had watched three films about campus political activists and one film about a college tennis team and the results had been mixed. How, I wondered, could it be that watching none of these films, with the possible exception of R.P.M., was as much fun as actually attending college?
And then it occurred to me that a huge part of the problem was that I really couldn’t relate to any of the characters in the previous films I had watched. Political activists bore me to tears and, for that matter, so do jocks. So, for my next college film, I decided to take care of that problem by re-watching a movie that I actually could relate to — 2012’s Pitch Perfect.
I was recently shocked when a male acquaintance of mine told me that he loved Pitch Perfect. Don’t get me wrong — I love Pitch Perfect, too. But it’s never really struck me as a film that guys would like.
“Really?” I said, “I love Pitch Perfect! What was your favorite part?”
“The shower,” he said.
And suddenly, it all made sense.
In Pitch Perfect, alienated college student Beca (Anna Kendrick) is taking a shower at her dorm and, thinking she’s alone, she starts singing. Earlier in the day, she had turned down a chance to audition for an all girls a capella group, saying that she really couldn’t sing. However, as this scene shows, she actually has a wonderful voice.
However, one of the members of the a capella group — Chloe (Brittany Show) — is over in the next shower stall and, as soon as she overhears Beca singing, she confronts her with, “I knew you could sing!” and she and the reluctant Beca end up singing Titanium together.
(And, of course, they’re both naked while doing it, which I imagine is the reason why, whenever I mention Pitch Perfect around any guy, the shower scene always seems to come up. Of course, none of them ever mentions my favorite part of the scene, which is when the cute guy who was taking a shower with Chloe pops up and tells the girls that they sound really good.)
Even though I’ve never been invited to be a member of an a capella singing group, I could relate to that scene, if just because I also sing in the shower and, during my first year at college, I lived in a dorm with a communal shower as well. Every time I took a shower, I would sing — not to be obnoxious but just because that’s what I had always done and, when I was living at home, nobody ever seemed to have a problem with me singing.
And, like anyone who has ever spontaneously broke out into song, I guess there was always a part of me that hoped it would inspire a complete stranger to tell me how talented I was. I didn’t necessarily want anyone to interrupt my shower but there was a part of me that always hoped someone would say, “I knew you could sing!”
So, one morning, I was down in the Bruce Hall cafeteria and I overheard two girls who lived on the same wing as me talking.
“Oh my God,” I heard one of them say, “did you hear her singing in the shower this morning?”
“Oh my God,” the other replied, “she has got the worst voice I have ever heard. I’m just like, ‘Bitch, will you shut the fuck up?'”
Now, I’d like to say that I stood up for myself and told both of them off, because that’s what would have happened in a movie like Pitch Perfect. Unfortunately, however, I wasn’t in a movie. I was in the real world, I was 18, I was insecure, and I was living away from home for the first time. So, instead of turning around and challenging those two mean girls to a sing-off, I went back to my room and cried. Then I got mad and said “Fuck them!” Then I cried some more. And this went on for a while.
Finally, my roommate Kim got tired of watching me pace back and forth, alternatively crying and cursing. Standing in front of me, she said, “Lisa, do you like to sing?”
“Yes,” I replied, in between sobs, “and how dare they–”
“If you like singing, then sing!”
To this day, those six words make up some of the best advice I’ve ever been given. As soon as I heard them, I felt better. And yes, I did take Kim’s advice. Every time I took a shower, I would sing. Of course now, I made it a point to sing as loudly and as with much twang in my voice as possible. If I couldn’t be the best, then I was happily going to embrace being the worst. The important thing is that I enjoyed singing so that was what I was going to do and if they didn’t like it, that was their problem.
But anyway, this review is supposed to be about Pitch Perfect and what can I say other than it’s one of my favorite films of all time. The plot is predictable — of course, Beca joins the a capella group and of course, she, Fat Amy (played by Rebel Wilson, who is like a hilarious force of nature in this film), and a bunch of other unlikely singers go on to compete and win. And yes, in the end, Beca also gets a really cute boyfriend.
Pitch Perfect really is pretty much Bring It On with a capella replacing cheerleading. But, who cares? The music is great, the cast is full of good actors (and Elizabeth Banks has a hilarious cameo as a commentator), and it’s just a very likeable and enjoyable movie. If you’re not happy after watching Pitch Perfect, then there’s probably no hope for you.
In other words, it’s a movie that makes me want to sing.
Having already watched 3 campus protests from 1970, I decided that maybe I should watch something a little bit less heavy-handed for my next college film. But I knew that, in order to find a college film that would have nothing serious on its mind, I would have to find a film that was made after the 70s.
That’s what led to me getting out my Too Cool For School DVD boxset and watching Jocks, a “comedy” from 1987. As you can probably guess from the sarcastic use of quotation marks, I probably would have been better off staying in the 70s.
Christopher Lee (!) plays the President White, the strict president of L.A. College. President White is upset because the athletic department has failed to win a championship in over ten years so he gives Coach Bettlebom (played by veteran character actor R. G. Armstrong) an ultimatum: win a championship or lose his job. Bettlebom argues that the rest of the athletic department would be able to win if it wasn’t for the financial obligation of supporting the school’s tennis team. Bettlebom then tells tennis Coach Williams (played by Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree) that he’s canceling the tennis program and all of the tennis players are going to lose their scholarships. Williams responds by making a bet. If the tennis team wins the national championship, the tennis program will continue. And if they don’t, the team will cease to exist, Williams will be out of a job, and the members of the tennis team will all be forced to drop out of college and have their lives totally ruined…
Wait a minute.
That makes absolutely no sense.
What the Hell is Coach Williams thinking!?
That’s the sort of thinking that leads students to protest and occupy buildings and basically act like they’re extras in Getting Straight, Zabriskie Point, and R.P.M.
But anyway, let’s just move on and not worry about things like logic and narrative sense. It’s time to meet the tennis team!
There’s Tex (Adam Mills), who doesn’t have a Texas accent. Tex doesn’t really do much but he’s certainly in a lot of scenes.
There’s Andy (Stoney Jackson), the flamboyant black guy who freaks out his opponents by pretending to be gay, because this film was made in the 20th Century.
There’s Chito (Trinidad Silva), who speaks Spanish and dramatically crosses himself before playing each set.
There’s Ripper (Donald Gibb), who has a thick beard, growls a lot, and appears to be in his 40s.
There’s Jeff (Perry Lang), the nice guy. In a film full of unlikable characters, Jeff seems to be, at the very least, a decent guy. Plus, he has a fairly funny drunk scene and, when you’re watching a film like Jocks, you come to appreciate fairly funny.
And then there’s The Kid (Scott Strader), who apparently doesn’t have a name. Seriously, even President White calls him “The Kid.” As you might guess about someone with a permanent nickname, The Kid is a master tennis player.
Anyway, the team goes to the championships in Las Vegas where they engage in the usual drunken hijinks and basically act like a bunch of jerks. They also play some rather boring tennis games. The Kid falls for a tennis groupie played by future Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay. Eventually, it all comes down to whether or not the team can beat Dallas Tech and, as a proud Texas girl, I’m not ashamed to admit that I was saying, “Go Dallas!” the entire time.
So, is Jocks worth watching?
If you’re a Christopher Lee fan, maybe. But, honestly, I think Sir Christopher would forgive you if you skipped this one.
For my next return-to-college film, I ended up watching R.P.M. Like both Getting Straight and Zabriskie Point, R.P.M. was released in 1970 and deals with political unrest on campus.
Directed by Stanley Kramer (who also gave us such respectable and middlebrow liberal films asGuess Who’s Coming To Dinner and Judgment at Nuremberg),R.P.M. takes place at prestigious college. Students radicals led by Rossiter (Gary Lockwood) and Dempsey (Paul Winfield) have taken over a building on campus. When the university’s president goes to confront the students, one of them yells out, “Buzz off!” Well, you know how sensitive college presidents are. He quickly resigns his post and the students demand that he be replaced either by Che Guevara, Eldridge Cleaver, or Paco Perez.
Unfortunately, Guevara is dead and Cleaver is in Algeria. Fortunately, left-wing sociology professor Paco Perez (Anthony Quinn) is available and he just happens to teach on campus! Perez is named interim president of the college. Now, Perez has to bring peace to the campus, despite the fact that the protestors now see him as a sell-out because he accepted the position. Perez also has to deal with nonstop snarky comments from his girlfriend, a grad student named Rhoda (played by Ann-Margaret).
Especially when compared to Getting Straight and Zabriskie Point, R.P.M. is something of a forgotten film. I haven’t found many reviews online and the majority of them mostly seem to focus on the fact that the film is dated and that director Stanley Kramer’s portrayal of the student protestors is incredibly negative. And, in many ways, those criticisms are perfectly valid. And yet, with all that in mind, I still loved R.P.M. Of the three 1970 campus protest films that I watched last weekend, R.P.M. was my personal favorite.
Why do I so love R.P.M?
Well, let’s check out some of the dialogue.
When Paco first comes to see the protestors, one girl literally sings, “Look what the revolution dragged in!”
Later, another demonstrator is heard to philosophically ask, “Why is the good ass never radical and the radical ass never good?” (And that’s certainly a question that was asked by everyone who drove by Occupy Dallas back in 2011.)
About the college administration, one girl announces, “They’ve got empty scrotes!”
When Paco tells Dempsey that the college is finally going to hire a black admissions offer, Dempsey replies, “How black? Is this cat an oreo cookie? Is he related to my uncle Tom?”
When Paco asks how long it will take for the protestors to peacefully leave the building, one of them loudly announces, “It would take to the 12th of never!” Of course, everyone applauds.
And that’s not counting all of the times that random protestors say, “Right on!”
But even better than listening to the protestors is listening to Paco and Rhoda discuss their relationship.
When Rhoda tells Paco that she knows the real him because she sees him without his pajamas, Paco replies, “That’s not reality. That’s flab.” With a world-weary sigh, Rhoda replies, “Flab is reality.”
When Paco complains about Rhoda’s cooking, she sensibly tells him, “Next semester, hump a home economics major.” Paco replies, “I did. The food is great but the talk is lousy.”
After being taunted by a student, Paco asks Rhoda, “Did you tell the kids I was a lousy lay?” Rhoda laughs and replies, “I may have thought it but I never said it!”
Finally, in one heart-warming scene, Paco informs Rhoda that, “The whole campus calls you Paco’s Pillow.”
Seriously, how can you not love a movie with dialogue this overwritten and over-the-top? It’s obvious the Kramer and screenwriter Erich Segal were desperate to sound hip and contemporary and, as a result, nobody speaks like a normal person. Instead, listening to R.P.M. is a bit like listening to a party to which every 60s stereotype has been invited.
And yet, it’s not just the dated dialogue that causes me to love R.P.M. As opposed to the histrionic Getting Straight and the artistically detached Zabriskie Point, R.P.M. is an attempt to seriously deal with the issue of student protest. For every three moments that ring false, there’s one that works and that’s a lot more than most films about campus unrest can say. Anthony Quinn gives a good performance as a man who doesn’t realize quite how complacent he has become. He and Gary Lockwood have a wonderfully tense scene together where they sincerely and intelligent debate their different worldviews. It’s the best scene in the film and one that is so well-done that it excuses any previous missteps.
R.P.M. occasionally shows up on TCM. Keep an eye out for it.
Now, you may be thinking that after reading my reviews of Getting Straight and Zabriskie Point, that we here at the Shattered Lens are encouraging you to overthrow the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth! To quote Michael Scott, nobody here is subversive. Everyone is thoroughly versive. (Michael Scott said that once, didn’t he?)
Anyway, just in case anyone is having any dangerous thoughts, here’s a 30-minute short film from 1972. In Brink of Disaster, Johnny, a college students who sympathizes with the n0-goodniks of the world, breaks into the library so that he cans study late at night and protect it from rampaging campus radicals.
(Wait? What? That makes no sense but, then again, it was 1972…)
Anyway, as Johnny attempts to smoke and study, the ghost of his great-great-great-great grandfather, John Smith, materializes out of thin air and tells him everything that’s wrong with his generation. Johnny attempts to argue but he’s no match for his wiser ancestor.
“Don’t compare to the founding fathers to that riff raff!” John Smith exclaims at one point, “We want to worship God and they want to deny God!”
You tell him, John Smith!
Anyway, you know me. Whether I agree or disagree with the message, there’s nothing that I love more than an old school propaganda film. So, watch and enjoy Brink of Disaster and think twice before you try to overthrow the establishment because you might end up getting haunted by a condescending ghost.
